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Many pundits believe that Thanksgiving dinner, when dysfunctional families come together to pig out, is the time when Canadians finally decide how they will vote next Monday. This is an irresistible Canadian scene, both homey and democratic at the same time. Good old us. All we needed was Frank Capra to film it and Jimmy Stewart to star.
If they’re right, here’s how it might have played out across the country this long weekend.
Each dinner will have depended on the political predilections of the guests; surely that’s axiomatic. So at our celebration, today, I expect our two near-teen granddaughters will lead the congregation in a rather subdued and rueful version of the normally boisterous Harperman protest song. These two precocious young women are self-declared passionate NDP supporters, and sure enough their house is immediately recognizable by Myrna Clark’s orange sign on the front lawn — a welcome contrast to the dreary blue and red signs that surround it on either side. It is all we can do to keep these zealous new partisans from desecrating those other signs.
I also am pretty confident (thank heavens) what side the sisters will be on when the house divides over our Anyone But Harper choice. I’m praying (in my way) there be no violence.
Meanwhile, while we’ll be belting out “Harperman, it’s time for you to go, go, go,” I visualize the house next door with the big blue sign having been immersed in quite a different Thanksgiving project. I see them having scrupulously followed Chris Alexander’s order to form a local vigilante committee to keep a sharp watch for Barbaric Cultural Practices against Women and Girls.
These egregious practices might very well be going on in other homes on the very same street, beginning of course with those featuring a suspicious orange lawn sign. The BCPAWG Committee will have conscientiously made lists of names of anyone who offended any of them for any reason in recent memory, to turn over to the RCMP through the new rat line that the Conservatives have promised to fund since 911 is presumably overwhelmed by Caring Conservatives (CCs) distraught about disappeared Aboriginal women.
There are many welcome precedents for this decree from the Harper government. Many admirable states such as communist Cuba long ago set up similar neighbourhood snitch and spy committees to make sure their neighbours were not indulging in subversive activities like fantasizing about home ownership, using the internet, or thinking Fidel Castro’s 11-hour speeches were a tad tedious.
These committees have preserved the integrity of the Cuban revolution by ratting out their neighbours and turning the New Socialist Man into stoolies and finks. Canada must be similarly vigilant. When you think about it, it’s not such a long stretch from agreeing to take an NDP sign to forcing your nine-year-old daughter to marry a 65-year old man with no teeth.
In Cuba, ratted-out neighbours often disappeared for years on end. It’s not yet clear whether this is part of the Harperman plan or not, and we may not know until after Stephen Harper’s re-election next Monday. Maybe they’ll just lose their citizenship and be sent to Saudi Arabia to be beheaded by our close allies there. In the meantime, Canadians must be constantly on guard against anyone who desecrates cherished Canadian values like voting against the Conservatives.
Mr. Alexander himself gave some obvious examples — child marriages, forced marriages, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery, “honour” killings. These are indeed barbaric practices that many Conservatives — who wouldn’t know a Musulman from a muscleman or a niqab from a kneecap — seem to believe are common practices among all Muslims.
But there are so many more repugnant practices to squeal on. What about those who follow a religious order led by a man who wears dresses? Or those who drink the blood and eat the body of a man who died centuries ago? What about religious officials who molest children? What about those who mutilate little boys’ penises (full disclosure: it still stings)? Or who force women to have babies they don’t want and can’t raise properly? What about Rob Ford and Don Cherry? Hell, what about those disgusting baseball players, who chew and hawk incessantly. Ever seen their dugout floor? Now that’s what I call truly barbaric, and it’s even on live television.
Meanwhile, in the house on the right, the red-sign people would have interrupted their turkey feast to feast smugly on extensive videos of Mr. Trudeau looking vibrant and elated. Netflix has compiled all of Mr. Trudeau’s debate interventions so Liberals can have a true binge-out. Imagine, nine straight hours of “Justin” exceeding expectations. It’s an NDP nightmare.
That leaves those who have no intention of voting. To make them pay for their shameful civic irresponsibility, they were sentenced to spend Thanksgiving dining with Pierre Poilievre and Paul Calandra. That should have taught them exactly how much voting matters.
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